Limit team $

[MrJohnston]

No.

We have over 100 students and 20 active mentors on our team. It cost us about $60,000 just to attend Nationals (less than half the team attended)and anotehr $15,000 to attend our second regional - only 2hrs away from us - and these costs do not include entry fees.

The $4000 robot cost is a great constraint and equalizer already.... Besides travel, here are other things that just plain cost more due to the size of our team:

* Training materials.
* Tools.
* Workspace (we built a shop this year)
* Additional training/practice robots - so that *all* kids can work on something.

[treffk]

Originally Posted by Macktack

They should split all of FRC into two divisions, professionally built robots (e.g. robots built by NASA and GM and Boeing) and a division for student build robots. Teams that just assemble their robot from a kit that a profesional company built for them should not be allowed to compete with the student built bots. Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

I wish I knew where to find the quote to support this but FIRST doesn't really care who builds the robot. They care about inspiring students. Not all students are inspired the same way. For some it happens with hands on work others they have to take a step back and take a hands-off approach.

I pulled this mission statement directly off their website but the emphasis is mine:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

The student built robot/professional or mentor build robot topic has been beaten to death. This does not happen as often as we think it does. Students can have some awesome mentors that help them and coach them while building a phenomenal robot. Not all students know how to operate some machines/tools or cannot operate manufacturing machines/tools due to restrictions. This makes mentors necessary when it comes to building specific parts or components.

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

I would wager only a team or two (tops) would be in that "kit assembled" division...

Yes...we know that our robots would be in that division... Everything is so carefully planned out and nothing looks like it was added on after the initial design...ever.

We are sorry.

[TEAM1100soft506]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

No.

We have over 100 students and 20 active mentors on our team. It cost us about $60,000 just to attend Nationals (less than half the team attended)and anotehr $15,000 to attend our second regional - only 2hrs away from us - and these costs do not include entry fees.

The $4000 robot cost is a great constraint and equalizer already.... Besides travel, here are other things that just plain cost more due to the size of our team:

* Training materials.
* Tools.
* Workspace (we built a shop this year)
* Additional training/practice robots - so that *all* kids can work on something.

I agree. my team is 60 students and close to 20 active mentors. from that we brought 40 students and 9 mentors to St. Louis. We drained our bank account so much that we cant pay for a bus to get to our favorite off season event, Battlecry 14 at WPI. Money is a huge problem for my team (but I am working to fix that.) I do think that a 4000$ limit for the robot might make things interesting.

[Gregor]

Where did this notion of trying to even the playing field come from, and why are people trying to enforce it?

[akoscielski3]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Where did this notion of trying to even the playing field come from, and why are people trying to enforce it?

I know exactly where it's coming from. As children we were babied, we got everything handed too us. Everything was made easier as to not hurt our feelings or make everyone feel like a winner. Unfortunately it has gotten so mad that in some kids sports they dont keep score because "everyone's a winner."

Now we expect this same kind of treatment as young adults, but sorry kids, you need to wake up to live in the real world.

Life is not fair, get used to it!

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I have to disagree... it is precisely those small teams that are the most inspirational to me....

When I look at the rankings and see a team ranked highly that I don't know much about, and I head down to the pits to check out their robot and see a kitbot with a decidedly inexpensive looking manipulator, that's FIRST for me. Because those kids and their mentor(s) didn't have a lot of resources, but they survived build season and managed to create a winning machine. When I see this robot on the field and it scores or plays defense or whatever it does and does it well, I realize how much more that means when you consider how much it took just to get it on the field. And if it beats one of these shiny machines from a team like 118 or 254 or 67, that inspires me just as much as the shiny robots do.

[PVCpirate]

Originally Posted by TEAM1100soft506

I do think that a 4000$ limit for the robot might make things interesting.

This already exists, its in the manual.

[George1902]

Isn't coopertiton about working to reach higher than our peers rather than dragging them down?

In that light, we should be efforting to bring each team's budget *up* to $50k, not limit our brightest stars to that level.

[waialua359]

Being from Hawaii, I find this thread quite amusing.
Pretend you're us but you live where you do, and all FRC events are held in Hawaii, minus your home event. How much would that cost you?

FRC is an international world event, not a US mainland one only.

[SteveGarward]

This amuses me somewhat too. Being (originally) from Australia, consider teams outside the US - in Australia, Israel, Turkey... Limit the team $$$ and you limit this to a (mainland) North America competition.

I have some similar issues with the district model because of similar distance/cost issues, but that is for another thread somewhere.

Apart from that, I don't think you can reasonably limit the amount of money a team puts in to inspiration, for their own team or for the community beyond the team, if they are willing to work for it.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Macktack

They should split all of FRC into two divisions, professionally built robots (e.g. robots built by NASA and GM and Boeing) and a division for student build robots. Teams that just assemble their robot from a kit that a profesional company built for them should not be allowed to compete with the student built bots. Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

As a Boeing team (3929): lulz

I don't think this is how the rest of 1218 views FIRST, at least, from my experiences with them.

I find it funny someone from Chestnut Hill would post in this thread, especially Peter's son.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

As a Boeing team (3929): lulz

I don't think this is how the rest of 1218 views FIRST, at least, from my experiences with them.

I find it funny someone from Chestnut Hill would post in this thread, especially Peter's son.

For Macktack

This is not the NFL. There is no salary cap. There is no revenue sharing. The only limits in the end, are what you try to accomplish with what you have and how much you're willing to do to get more.

[jp1247]

Wow teams actually raise that much? Since 2004 our team has run off of < $1000 a year in fundraising/donations (believe me we've tried our best), there's just no interest in the community, and we only have 1 smallish corporate sponsor. Everything we've had or used has been private donations by 2 or 3 mentors...

So I can see where this question is coming from, but I agree, it doesnt make sense to limit how much a team can raise.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Macktack

Having an alliance of GM, NASA and Boeing beat an alliance of student built robots benefits non of the students.

I'm not sure how this came into a thread about money. This belongs in one of the dozens of mentor versus student built threads that have been beat to death over the last several years.

Moving back on topic though, I think even trying to limit team cash is a horrid idea. Do you understand how much it costs for teams from California to attend worlds, when they have to fly their entire group? Or even worse, attendeding from Hawaii? Israel? Australia? England?

Before you suggest that we allow different budgets for different teams, I'll head it off with a quick "No way". This event is about inspiring, not leveling the playing field for all involved.

That all said, our team builds fairly competitive robots and we're no where near a $50,000 budget. In fact, I'd say we're just a tad over 1/2 of that $50,000 number.

I think Ike nailed it. The object here should be to make the competitive costs lower, not tear down the teams that are more fortunate. The District system has done a spectacular job of that.

Switching over to a country wide district system would be much better. Teams who geographically are limited to only 1 event should be able to submit a hardship letter to FIRST and have the points in their first competition count double. This would serve to correct the issue with too many teams in Worlds as well.